The TES’s survey of 5,832 teachers shows that it is the Liberal Democrats’ education policies which are most ‘in tune’ with teachers’ views on education. Notably, the Conservatives’ policies are the second most popular with teachers, whilst Labour seem to be the least in tune by a significant margin. (Labour’s only comparatively popular policy is the introduction of the 14-19 Diploma as an alternative to A-levels).
As the TES notes, the importance of each party’s education policies amongst teachers is strong: 9 in 10 of the teachers surveyed said that each party’s education policies affected which party they would vote for in the next general election. With teachers one of the largest groups of professionals in the country, their views are clearly not to be sniffed at, generally.
The TES carried out the poll of teachers’ views by choosing five of the three main political parties’ most popular policies. The winning party policy overall was the Conservative proposal to grant teachers total anonymity when they faced legal allegations. Not all other Conservative policies were found to be popular, however. No-notice Ofsted inspections and rolling-out large numbers of smaller academies, for example, were highly unpopular with teachers, as was the proposal to set all academic subject classes by ability.
The other two most popular policies amongst the teachers polled by the TES are both proposed by the Liberal Democrats. The first is getting rid of Key Stage 3 Sats (for 14 year-olds) and the second is introducing a substantial ‘pupil premium’ for disadvantaged pupils. Other popular policies from the Liberal Democrats include the establishment of an independent body to be called the ‘Educational Standards Authority’, to replace the government controlled Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, and abolishing F and G GCSE grades. Not all Liberal Democrat proposals were popular with teachers in the poll however: little support was shown for the Lib-Dems’ ‘free schools’ whereby independent schools, parents and charities are able to join in maintained school provision, Swedish style. Amongst Labour’s least popular policies, according to the poll, is the threat of school closure for secondaries not achieving the A*-C GCSE benchmark and their proposal to let Academies take over feeder primary schools was also not well-received in the survey.

• 90% of secondary school teachers surveyed have found the Key Stage 2 Sats results to be inconsistent with pupils’ true abilities, this last school year
• 79% of secondary school teachers have found that up to a third of their Year 7 year-group’s abilities have been lower than their Key Stage 2 Sats results, this last school year

Teaching to the test or ‘coaching’ is seen to be the number one reason for inflated Key Stage 2 results:

• 77% out of those teachers who feel that Key Stage 2 results have been sometimes or often higher than pupils’ actual abilities consider the main or second most important cause to be teaching to the test, or ‘coaching’, for the Sats.

‘Increasingly rarely primaries don’t coach pupils for the Key Stage 2 Sats.’

Secondary head of maths, North East

A major repercussion for secondary teachers of this artificial inflation is that it appears that they have made little or no progress with their pupils – or worst, that pupils have gone backwards. In reality, many of these pupils were never at their stated level. With ‘value added’ a central measure of school quality, secondary teachers frequently find inflated Key Stage 2 results put them under huge pressure to catch-up:

‘There is a lot of pressure to catch up in order to make up the two new levels of progress required. The progress which needs to be made puts us under an awful lot of pressure.’

Secondary head of English, Yorkshire and Humberside

One remedial measure increasingly adopted by secondary schools is to do their own testing. Directly related to misleading primary Sats results, nearly two-thirds of the secondary schools surveyed (62%) tested pupils on entry into secondary school this last academic year.

‘We do baseline testing so that we can show what we have done with them – by using the Key Stage 2 results it would look like we hadn’t made any progress.’

Secondary head of science, South East

‘The Key Stage 2 Sats have become little more than “vanity testing”: “proof” for the government of rising standards in primary schools which the consumers of these results – secondary schools – aren’t buying,’ commented Anastasia de Waal, Head of Family and Education and author of the report.

The purpose of testing in state schools has come to be more about ‘proving’ that standards are rising – irrespective of whether they actually are – than genuinely gauging standards. As a result, independent testing is being resorted to as an antidote to distortions now rife in government testing. Universities are increasingly carrying out their own testing because of flaws in the exam process, as are employers on school leavers.

Now secondary schools are following suit, resorting to their own independent testing.

• Vast sums spent on Key Stage 2 testing wasted as secondary schools cannot use the results
• Significant gaps left in coached pupils’ learning

Teaching to the test has become such a widespread phenomenon because of government pressure to boost test and exam results at whatever cost. Up and down the country primary school teachers are finding themselves compelled to teach to the test both through official guidance and through pressure to do what they can in the short-term to gain higher Sats scores. [p19]

The result is that the mechanism for testing teacher and school effectiveness has come to actually undermine educational effectiveness. Over the last decade higher test scores in primary schools have all too often represented less learning and worse educated pupils.

The solution is not scrapping primary testing, however. Discussion around the issues which primary school testing in this country currently faces often leads to the conclusion that the root of the problem is testing per se. The evidence on what has gone wrong in testing strongly suggests that this is an erroneous position. Testing itself is not the problem. Testing can be stimulating for pupils and useful in terms of measuring how effective teaching and school policies are; if testing is used effectively, it can indeed be a valuable accountability tool, with no detriment to even comparatively young pupils.

The underlying problem is that testing has become the end rather than the means in driving up school standards thereby warping its potential to ensure accountability. [p18]

The solution is testing which gauges a truly randomised snapshot of learning, rather than the testing happening today, whereby the sum of learning, all to often, becomes that snapshot. To do so schools should not be forewarned on either details of the test content, or the timing. Annual unseen testing at any point in upper primary school (between Years 3 and 6) would provide a more accurate picture of learning levels and progress in a school.[p19]

Notes to editors:

• 107 secondary school teachers who taught in Year 7 in maintained schools in England this last school year were surveyed using a telephone questionnaire, between 8th and 24th July 2008
• The views of 47 maths teachers, 32 English teachers and 28 science teachers were obtained
• Responses cover the following regions: North East – 2, Yorkshire and Humberside – 8, North West – 5, East Midlands – 3, West Midlands – 4, East of England – 4, London – 16, South West – 12, South East – 5
• The full report can be read here